A community committee is making a pitch to the city to include a historic El Paso-Juárez trolley into the plans for the San Jacinto Plaza renovation.

The committee, appointed by the El Paso City Council in September 2011, was given the task to review the plans for the plaza and make suggestions, said Nestor Valencia, a member of the committee and former director of planning for the city of El Paso.

One of their ideas was converting a trolley -- which ran through the city's streets starting in 1902, into the El Paso-Juárez Trolley Café.

"We came back with about 15 or 16 ideas and they approved most of them," Valencia said. "For me, the biggest one was converting a real PCC 39 trolley that actually provided service between El Paso and Ciudad Juárez into a cafe."

REPORTER

Aaron Martinez

The PCC 39 streetcars have a long history in the El Paso area and a special place in the heart of Valencia. When labor disputes and economic concerns from the Mexican government halted the trolleys in the 1970s, then El Paso Mayor Fred Hervey gave Valencia the job of purchasing all of the streetcars from the City Line Co.

"The streetcars were a big part of this city's history. I used to take them every weekend with my mother to go shopping. A lot of people did that on both sides of the border," Valencia said. "After the Mexico government stopped the trolleys for various reasons, Mayor Hervey told me to buy the streetcars and I did. I got about 19 streetcars for about $60,000. Later on I bought everything in the line that City Line owned."

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Since then the streetcars have gone mostly unused. Some of them are on display at the El Paso International Airport, but are in horrible condition, Valencia said.

"These streetcars are very important to the history of the area. The streetcars at the airport are dying and in deplorable condition," he said. "The renovation of San Jacinto Plaza is a great opportunity to save them and bring history to the park. I mostly like the plans for the plaza, but we need something in the park that gives historic value and the streetcars will do that."

A plan to use a streetcar as a cafe is being discussed by the city, but no official decision has been made on the design of the food venue, said Martin Bartlett, spokesman for the city of El Paso's Engineering and Construction Management Department. A timeline for making a decision has not been set.

"The design, which we presented to the public last week, includes a full service cafe lot. We are reviewing a proposal to use a streetcar, but have yet to make a decision," Bartlett said. "There will be one full service cafe in San Jacinto Plaza, but what form it will be in has yet to be decided."

One of the major decisions on whether to add a streetcar to the plaza is if a real PCC 39 should be used or a fabricated one, Valencia said.

"Our plan called for the use of a real street car to be placed in the park as the El Paso-Juárez Trolley Café and further the historical foundation of the park, while the city wants to put a fabricated street car," Valencia said. "This is the central point the committee and the city are discussing now. We feel it should be a real PCC 39 that actually provided service between El Paso and Ciudad Juárez. A fake street car would not have the same importance as a real PCC 39."

A place to eat and have drinks is definitely needed in the plaza and if it can help bring history back it should be an easy decision, said Armando Lopez, an El Paso native who visits the plaza about twice a week.

"Yes, the area is getting more restaurants and businesses and I hope it will continue to grow, but a small food stand that offers good, cheap food and drinks is needed to bring people to the park," Lopez said. "The streetcar would be great since it brings food to the plaza and adds a lot of history to the area."

Aaron Martinez may be reached at aamartinez@elpasotimes.com; 546-6249. Follow him on Twitter @Amartinez31